It Almost Shouldn't Work

In every fisherman there must be -- there has to be -- a speck of the possible. Like a scratch on the frames of your glasses: something you can’t help but see through. It’s not optimism, per se (or I’d never be able to consider myself one). Rather, the possible: that which can be. Not just what you hope, or believe. Confidence and conviction can only take you so far before you’re left in the empty lot of possibilities...the haunty what-ifs. And it’s those possibilities that fishermen hold near even if ever unspoken, dwelling in them as they hold their breath for more. Passing in and out of consciousness of time, losing minutes and hours. Sometimes days. To futile attempts, not for lack of any effort.

Because the probability is low. You know that. “It almost shouldn’t work,” you were told -- hot, tired, and mud-laced with a six weight.

Almost.  

Yet sometimes it does. Sometimes you watch a long managed cast to the shadow-with-a-tail, lay down smooth, quiet, and straight. Sometimes you see the shadow turn (almost too quickly, you second-guess) and then stop. And it works, you think, it works, as you watch him set the hook and smile.

And an old-woman-dog-walker in teal-blue says, cool. 

 
Possibilities are what keep you from giving up, from calling it quits when the fishing is hard or when the conditions are bad. And from giving up on life, too -- because there’s always the question of another morning. And another cast, both demanding an answer: like a job you’ve somehow mistakenly applied for and been offered. Yet in any case you’ve found yourself here, and you never know just what’s going to happen. Could be good; could not be. But you’ve got to give it a go because the possibilities are endless, even if the the probability is low -- driving you crazy if you think about it too much.

And maybe that explains a few things, because you do.